The unknown does not a crisis make.  Thoughts create crises.  Despite the belief of people who claim to be smarter than any one of us, people simply do not know everything.  What follows then is that people do not have all of the answers to every perceived problem that arises.  It is thinking that people should, or even could, have all of the answers that transforms the unknown into a crisis.

As a medical malpractice trial attorney who has a passion for happiness, I often think about how these two subjects merge and may be instructive in our lives.  In malpractice cases, doctors and other medical professionals are judged on their decision-making at a given point in time.  Simply put, did they treat the patient correctly under the circumstances?  The process seems clear and simple.  Yet it is not.  Most malpractice cases are filed in court because there was a bad outcome, not because of any wrong decision or actual negligence.  The fact remains that doctors and the medical world do not have all of the answers.  Just ask any doctor for a “guarantee” of a cure or a complete recovery from a surgery.  Or for a more outrageous reaction, ask any trial lawyer to promise a certain jury verdict.  The fact that you will be given no such promises proves that the only guarantee in medicine or jury trials, and in most areas of life, is that there is no certainty of outcome.

There is one certainty of life however.  We have choice.  In uncertain times, when others think crisis, the opportunity is presented to follow suit or choose Frost’s road less traveled.  The less traveled during uncertain times tends to be the road along which gratitude lay and happiness may await.  Walk the path along which you see the abundance of things you have and the life with which you are blessed.  Shun the road of need and scarcity that emphasizes what you shall have not.  Operate not on the road of the hoarder, but take the route of the provider.  Positive thought, personal gratitude and loving action are emphasized exponentially during times when the opposite is the conventional road taken.